THIS WEEK:

The Right Climate Stuff Team: In his Forbes column Larry Bell interviews Apollo astronaut Walter Cunningham, who discusses the change in culture at NASA from the days of the tremendous effort leading to the successful lunar missions as compared with today. Cunningham thinks that the culture of NASA today is less capable of significant accomplishments. Among other issues is that the Apollo scientists and engineers realized that hypotheses need to be challenged by empirical evidence.

Cunningham is part of The Right Climate Stuff team that tested the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide are causing unprecedented and dangerous global warming (Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW)) against empirical data and found the hypothesis wanting. He is particularly concerned with the confusion in science created by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and its former leader, James Hansen. Cunningham believes that GISS especially politicized science thereby compromising NASA’s credibility and he was one of those who signed a letter to NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden to that effect.

A number of NASA retirees sent a second letter stating that NASA in general, and GISS in particular, failed to address all the salient data on climate change, and relied too heavily on climate models that fail to correctly predict climate change. Cunningham believes NASA should be at the forefront in collecting scientific evidence and debunking the hysteria over AGW. Please see link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.

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Lowering Standards: Under its new leadership, the American Geophysical Union (AGU) announced a new statement on climate change drafted by a special committee for that purpose. The title says it all: “Human-induced climate change requires urgent action.” The new leadership has completely politicized that once august scientific organization. Among other questionable statements is: “Human-caused increases in greenhouse gases are responsible for most of the observed global average surface warming of roughly 0.8°C (1.5°F) over the past 140 years.”

If the statement is correct, we all should be thankful that greenhouse gas emissions, carbon dioxide (CO2) in particular, brought the earth out of the Little Ice Age and its brutal weather. Of course, the AGU ignores the fact that a major component of 20th century warming occurred from about 1910 to 1940, long before significant CO2 emissions. The new leadership did not bother to submit the statement to the membership for a vote.

On her web site, Judith Curry presents the significant objections by Roger Pielke Sr., the only dissenter on the AGU committee. Curry questions why any professional society should issue statements on this topic. In her opinion the AGU statement is one of worst she has seen from a professional society.

In a different post, using criteria discussed at an AAAS workshop, Curry grades the climate statements by the Royal Society, the American Meteorological Society, and the American Geophysical Union. Under its new leadership, the AGU did not do well. Please see links under Lowering Standards and Questioning the Orthodoxy.

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NOAA: The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released its 2012 State of the Climate report. The report evaded the facts that for a decade there has been little or no warming of the lower atmosphere, where the greenhouse effect takes place, and for over 15 years little or no surface warming. Instead the report states: “Warm temperature trends continue near Earth’s surface: Four major independent datasets show 2012 was among the 10 warmest years on record, ranking either 8th or 9th, depending upon the dataset used.” This is evasion of the facts.

The report further states: “The United States and Argentina had their warmest year on record.” As presented by John Christy and Joe D’Aleo, the statement for the US is questionable. An examination of surface records of the US that date back at least 80 years shows that more temperature records were set in the 1930s than during any other decade.

The logo of the web site carrying the report has the caption “science & information for a climate-smart nation.” Apparently, the leadership of NOAA believes that ignorance of significant, contradicting data is smart. Please see links under Lower Standards.

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Climate and Violence: Statistician William Briggs discusses with widely differing statistics used in the paper “Quantifying the Influence of Climate on Human Conflict”, which was discussed in last week’s TWTW. He concludes: “The most charitable way to describe the result is complete and utter nonsense. I do not want to exaggerate, but this paper is not even a mess.” So much for the standards of “peer review” in Science magazine. Please see link under Lowering Standards.

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Validating Models: As stated in prior TWTWs none of the some-73 global climate models have been validated and all run too hot when compared to lower atmospheric temperatures. On his web site, Bishop Hill, Andrew Montford presents a bibliography obtained by of his readers from the British Met Office in response to an inquiry on the validity of the output from General Circulation Models. Montford suggests his readers may wish to randomly select a paper and see what comfort it gives in answering the question.

This should prove interesting. The very first paper gives some discomfort. It equates model simulations (model runs) with experiments, which is not correct. An experiment would be how well a model predicted a particular component of climate – such as warming of the atmosphere over the tropics, where Douglass et al. [IJC 2007] have shown that the models fail. Please see link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.

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Quote of the Week: The quote comes from John Brignell who devoted his career to measurement in science and engineering and was a pioneer in computer modeling. Very simply, the value of feedbacks cannot be established within a model. The feedbacks must be thoroughly tested outside of the model. This procedure is ignored in the reports by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its followers. On his web site, Brignell presents a list of hazards in computer modeling, which still apply.

In a 12 minute video, Australian David Evans explains why the models are failing – the calculated feedbacks are wrong. Please see links under Model v. Observations and Model Issues.

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After Climategate: University of East Anglia Professor of Climate Change, Mike Hulme, presented a provocative essay entitled “After Climategate…Never the Same,” which is found in his new book of essays. On her web site, Judith Curry reproduces part of the essay, which she links to, and offers some of her thoughts. Curry boldfaced a particular sentence: The populist notion that all climate sceptics are either in the pay of oil barons or are right-wing ideologues, as is suggested for example by studies such as Oreskes and Conway (2011), cannot be sustained. Please see link under Climategate Continued.

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Himalayan Melt: In its Fourth Assessment Report (AR4, 2007), the IPCC reported that the Himalayan glaciers will melt during the 21st century. This would cause great suffering to the many people who live on the watersheds of the Indus and Ganges rivers. The government of India was so concerned that it hired India’s foremost glacier expert to examine the claim. He found it false. Some glaciers were advancing, others retreating, with no clear net trend. The IPCC dismissed this study, leading the government of India to form its own team on climate change

Three years ago, a grouped headed by Walter Immerzeel published a paper in Science stating that during the early part of this century the glaciers will melt quickly and the water levels in the rivers will drop significantly by the end of the century. Many glacial experts criticized the study stating that glaciers melt slowly.

Now a team headed by Immerzeel has backed down on the predictions made earlier, stating the glaciers will recede, but more slowly and that the monsoons will increase precipitation. Of course, this is based on un-validated computer models, and may be very wrong. But at least Immerzeel is willing recognize a need to correct his prior study, which is how science progresses. The question remains: what will the IPCC do? Please see links under Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice

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Amplifications and Corrections: Several readers have complained about the proofreading of TWTW. However, it appears that the major problem is in formatting. As seen in the pdf posted on www.sepp.org long quotes are properly formatted with indentations. But when the word document is converted for distribution, this formatting is lost, making it somewhat difficult to follow. We will endeavor to be sensitive to proper formatting in the document that is distributed. As always we appreciate amplifications and corrections.

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Number of the Week: 207 According to reports an estimated 207 coal-fired power plants will close within the decade, of those 138 have been shut down since 2009. Most of the plants that have been shut down are the older, less efficient, and smaller plants. Modern plants are a great improvement to those built in the 1970s. A part of the shutdown is due to low prices of natural gas, but gas prices are rebounding due to a slowdown in drilling.

The plants to be shut down in the next 10 years have about 10% of the nation’s generating capacity. Thanks to game playing by the EPA and the administration, by announcing future regulations for new power plants without being specific, no prudent utility will undertake the planning and construction of a new coal-fired plant that may not be approved under future, to-be-determined, regulations. This is but another example how indifferent Washington is to the stagnant economy. Please see link under Washington’s Control of Energy and http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/08/07/utilities-firstenergy-coal-idINL1N0G822U20130807

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ARTICLES:

For the numbered articles below please see this week’s TWTW at: http://www.sepp.org. The articles are at the end of the pdf.

Areas occupied by marine species including fish, corals and plankton are moving by an average of 72 kilometers (45 miles) a decade, typically toward the poles, the study by researchers at 17 institutions in 8 countries said today. That’s more than 10 times the 6.1 kilometer rate that land creatures are shifting.

[SEPP Comment: More on the Royal Society’s award to “cognitive scientist” Stephan Lewandowsky and his attempt to link climate skeptics to those who believe NASA faked the lunar landing. Does Lewandowsky include Apollo astronauts?]

[SEPP Comment: Weeds, rats, and cockroaches will do well. Stanford University should be proud! For a contradicting paper link to Scientists assert there is less weather variability, globally, than most people believe.]

[SEPP Comment: A review of studies that indicate that prolonged Medieval Warm Period existed in China and that for most parts it was warmer than today. Increases in atmospheric CO2 cannot be the cause.]

Reference: Jiang, P., Gautam, M.R., Zhu, J. and Yu, Z. 2013. How well do the GCMs/RCMs capture the multi-scale temporal variability of precipitation in the southwestern United States. Journal of Hydrology 479: 75-85.

Jiang et al. conclude that their “comparative analyses suggest that current GCMs/RCMs do not adequately capture multi-scale temporal variability of precipitation,” and, therefore, they say that “using GCM/RCM output to conduct future flood projections is not credible.”

[SEPP Comment: The report shows that many states in which modern hydraulic fracturing is occurring already require disclosure of chemicals used. States which are potential for smart drilling are considering such regulations. Most states are using the national listing web site of fracfocus: http://www.fracfocus.org]

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9 thoughts on “Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup”

“The populist notion that all climate sceptics are either in the pay of oil barons or are right-wing ideologues, as is suggested for example by studies such as Oreskes and Conway (2011), cannot be sustained.”

Numberwatch is still going? I know what I’m doing tonight. Trying to catch up on old times.

It’s such an important site, so many people *live* fallacies explained there. Whole *careers* are based on these fallacies and bad ideas, and create *no end* of trouble for everyone else who has to clean up after these train wrecks.

About drought weakened trees dying from fire. The US Forest Service has been doing controlled burns in many states. Partly because they believe these fires help control tree pests, like beetles and larvae. Looks to me like more trees die of drought in the sections of forest they burned in my state. Because the leaf litter mulch on the forest floor is burned up. This mulch helps the soil retain moisture that is so desperately needed during drought. With the top leaf litter gone soil really dries up fast.

The clearest evidence that NASA has become a politically-correct wasteland is its capability. In 1969-1972 we were capable of sending men to the moon. In order to get the Space Shuttle, NASA had to kill its Saturn rocket system – but don’t worry, the Shuttle was going to launch twice a month! Now the Shuttle has been killed and we have the capability to send humans to– Russia, where they just tripled the cost of sending Americans into space on old ICBM boosters. In 2004, George W. Bush announced that we would go back to the moon by 2018, which would be almost twice as long as it took when JFK announced it in 1961. Then Obama cancelled that and told NASA to reach out to Muslims.

Every government project begins by accomplishing very little at far greater cost than expected. Following that, every government project then accomplishes absolutely nothing at infinite cost. Guess where we are.

The clearest evidence that NASA has become a politically-correct wasteland is its capability…..
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Sounds like it is about time to skuttle NASA. We don’t need a government ‘Science’ agency to perform Muslim outreach.

That was funny, Corey Powell replying to Joe Bastardi right before the end of the segment. Talking about proxies and computer models. The look on his face changed dramatically, he doesn’t believe in those talking points as he was saying them.